Dead hogs for months in Dutch pig house

Firefighters in a Dutch town have found approximately 500 dead pigs in a pig house, earlier this week, Dutch agricultural newspaper Agrarisch Dagblad reports.

Part of the pigs, found in a pig house near the town of Schaijk, in the south of the Netherlands, had been dead for months, a spokesman of the General Inspection Service (AID) reported.

The pig producer went missing for several hours. He was reported to have left the farm in a confused state at the beginning of the clearing operation. After a couple of hours the man was traced, a police spokeswoman said.

The pigs have most probably died due to a defect in the pig house's ventilation system.

Ventilation system
The AID spokseperson indicated it is too early to talk about animal maltreatment. "The producer is being questioned. Perhaps the ventilation system had been broken for a longer time, but in that case he failed to have the system repaired. In addition, he failed to remove the dead animals," the spokesperson said.

In total, the pig house was occupied by 2,500 animals. The fire brigade spent hours to remove the 500 dead animals. The producer's family took over the care for the animals that still lived.